It’s been years since director Terry Zwigoff brought Daniel Clowes’ alternately poignant and smartass comics to the silver screen, giving indie cred to Scarlett Johansson, an Oscar nod to the Oaksterdram-based Clowes and more. But then came the playboys into pantsuits, armored and otherwise, and all kinds of post-traumatic stress disorder broke loose.

Thank Gandalf! J.R.R. Tolkien’s riveting fantasy epic Lord of the Rings is once again hypnotizing Earth. As I write, Peter Jackson is booting up its cinematic prequel The Hobbit, probably with The Office and Sherlock straight man Martin Freeman in Bilbo’s furry feet. Jackson’s Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings bonanza is out on Blu-ray. I’ve [...]

On Apr. 30, Phish 3D hit theaters in a limited engagement, taking concert films into the multiple dimensions of the post-Avatar era. But Phish’s 2D predecessors still have a serious amount of pop-cultural clout.

From Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin to Jimi Hendrix (at right) and Dave Chappelle, they carry so much star power that [...]

This was one of my favorite pieces of the year so far. I wrote it for Wired.com, but I’m not sure they appreciated it as much as I did. Maybe it’s because I saw Ralph Bakshi films in the ’70s and ’80s, and they utterly blew my mind. And Peter Jackson’s. And John Kricfalusi’s. And [...]

Murder By Death is one of the most ridiculous, and ridiculously hilarious, spoofs of all time. A smoking cast, a conscienceless goof on mystery greats like Hercule Poirot and Sam Spade, Truman Capote, the list goes on. This is pretty much what the band named after it thought years ago. I chatted Murder By Death [...]

Sigh. Do you ever wish for the return of Joss Whedon’s Firefly, a reunion of the original Pink Floyd lineup, great films made from Alan Moore’s brain-melting comics, Neuromancer the film, and a BitTorrent-based supersite where you could download anything ever made for a small fee? Yeah, me too. For Wired.

Ever since he bedeviled The Empire Strikes Back, the small-time bounty hunter Boba Fett has nevertheless since bent the entire Star Wars multiverse to his will. But why? I asked the tough questions at Wired and got an eyeful from Star Wars fandom.

Now that my cold has somewhat subsided, I can catch you up on past work that perhaps passed beneath your radar. The finest of those possibilities is DC Comics and Warner Bros. comics-anime merge Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, one of the best films of the year. I reviewed it for Wired.